


The Last Flight

by madmarchy



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Angst, Before Zurich, Fluff and Angst, Gen, I'm Sorry, My First Work in This Fandom, Original Character(s), Otters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-15
Updated: 2014-03-15
Packaged: 2018-01-15 16:38:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1311757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madmarchy/pseuds/madmarchy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was something, something about that evening, walking through the fog out to GERTI, which made all of MJN's crew uneasy. Buenos Aires in April at seven in the evening would normally be a lovely thing, but the thick banks of fog that hung in the air made it far more ominous. It wasn't so thick that they couldn't take off but it was thick enough to make them to pay attention to the niggling feeling in their chests that something was wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last Flight

**Author's Note:**

> After series four of Cabin Pressure aired, I stumbled across a fanvid for Cabin Pressure, and that inspired this confluence of prose. I wanted to get it out before Zurich comes out. The fanvid is called ["Not the Best of News"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSw1p72ZfQc), I highly suggest watching before reading; it's gorgeous. There is also fanart that corresponds to this piece.  
> Fanart for it for the end of the story:[here](http://maregirl88.deviantart.com/art/The-Last-Flight-Mary-and-Martin-368092106?q=gallery%3Amaregirl88%2F30668135&qo=6), here, here , [and here](http://maregirl88.deviantart.com/art/The-Last-Flight-Arthur-and-Phillip-368095158?q=gallery%3Amaregirl88%2F30668135&qo=4).

There was something, something about that evening, walking through the fog out to GERTI, which made all of MJN's crew uneasy. Buenos Aires in April at seven in the evening would normally be a lovely thing, but the thick banks of fog that hung in the air made it far more ominous. It wasn't so thick that they couldn't take off but it was thick enough to make them to pay attention to the niggling feeling in their chests that something was wrong.

Unfortunately, none of them said anything about it. Douglas didn't ask Martin how he had slept - to which Martin would have answered that he hadn't slept well at all. Martin didn't see the far-away look in Douglas's eyes when he came back from the walk-round. Neither of the pilots heard the gentleness in Carolyn's voice as she gave the briefing, warning her boys to be careful with the fog and the line of thunderstorms over the Atlantic between them and Fitton - and no one noticed how frighteningly quiet Arthur was being.

"Here's your coffee chaps," Arthur said hardly above a whisper as he set down the cups within the pilots' reach shortly after take-off. He didn't know why he was speaking so softly, other than he had actually been paying attention to the briefing - well not so much the briefing as to the part where his mum had told them to be careful in the same tone that he had heard so often from her, whenever she really meant it and was seriously worried. Like right before he had fallen out of a tree when he was twelve and broken his arm.

"Thank you, Arthur," Douglas said, curling his fingers around the cup, Martin echoing the phrase half a moment later. It had been absolutely quiet in the flight deck before Arthur had come in, which made him even more uneasy than he already was. Ever since they had landed in Buenos Aires, Arthur had had a churning feeling in his tummy that gave him a permanent feeling of seasickness even when upon the ground.

They were less than an hour into the return from a cargo flight and there hadn't been any funny cabin addresses yet, or any games started. The only reason that Arthur could think of, was that they were actually concentrating on flying. And Arthur wasn't sure that Douglas had needed to concentrate on flying...ever. Arthur sat in the jump seat behind the pilots, letting his eyes slide out of focus and the lights from the panels blurring and looking like great balls of light.

“Martin, you haven’t heard –” Douglas began softly.

“No, Douglas, not yet.”

It had been two weeks since Martin’s interview in Yverdon-Les-Bains. Arthur was still confused about what he had told him when he had gotten off the plane from his interview, but he hadn’t voice his confusion yet. To be honest, he was waiting for Douglas to do something clever and sort it all out. Martin had insisted to Carolyn and Douglas that he hadn’t heard anything from Swiss Air yet. Carolyn had been asking Martin everyday, most of the time as soon as he walked through the Portacabin door.

“Arthur, what are you going to do if Swiss Air takes Martin?” Douglas asked. He wasn’t sure why the thought had just struck him, but it had now and with surprising velocity.

“Well I thought I could be the guy at the hotel with the giant birdcage for luggage.”

“A bellboy?”

“Yeah. Why?” Arthur asked in return to tone at which Douglas had asked that question.

“Oh, I don’t know. I always thought of you working in an airport.”

"Really? As what though? Maybe the bartender in the airport bar?"

"No, but that’s far funnier than was I was thinking.”

"What were you thinking?" Martin asked. Douglas gave him a funny look for a moment, finally noticing that Arthur’s insufferable chipperness was definitely down from it's usually punishingly high levels.

"Actually, I was thinking of you working in the Duty Free. Keeping Toblerones in stock for the masses.”

“Oh, that’s a really good idea, Douglas.”

They were quiet again for a moment - but only a moment before -

“Hex-a-boo?” Arthur asked.

“Gesundheit,” Douglas replied.

“No, what’s that feeling, when you’ve done something before? Hex-a-boo?”

“Do you mean deja-vu?” Martin asked.

“Yeah, that’s it. I think this was a part of my dream last night, er...this morning. It was strange.”

“And what made this dream particularly strange, even for an Arthur dream?” Douglas asked.

“It wasn’t like most of my dreams; it kept switching. At first it was me swimming in dark water, and someone was swimming with me, I dunno who though. And then, it switched to me sitting here with you chaps and then it switched again to - something. I can’t remember quite - I think it was about one of our trips though - and then it switched to when I was seven and mum and I were on a beach in Australia.”

“Why’s that unusual?” Martin asked.

“Normally my dreams are like long stories. They tend to stick to the same sort of storyline til they’re finished.”

“Sounds a bit like the cinema,” Douglas replied.

“A bit,” Arthur confirmed before heading back out the door.

"Arthur?" Douglas called just as the steward was about to back out of the flight deck. Arthur's head bounced back up, looking to the back of the pilot's heads.

"Yes, Douglas?"

"What's your favorite memory?" Douglas had no idea where the question bubbled up from, but the lack of an on going game sudden hit him and he felt the need to break the comfortable silence that had existed before Arthur had come in.

"What - You mean from childhood?" Martin asked.

"Well, in Arthur's case, that's somewhat all encompassing," Douglas replied quietly to Martin, "but not necessarily, no."

"Oh, gosh," Arthur said, leaning against the wall, thinking. Meanwhile, Martin and Douglas rolled the thought around their own minds.

Martin's first thought that popped into his mind was his favorite memory of Arthur. It had been when they had gotten stuck in St. Petersburg and Arthur's terrible father had tried to steal GERTI and they had frozen his hands to the control column. There had been the fantastic moment when he, Douglas and Carolyn had gotten back at Gordon for Arthur; however, that wasn't the moment that initially came to mind. It was actually the part after that - when they had gone back for Arthur, who had fallen asleep after he had done his bit of looking out for Gordon. He had said it then how it seemed such a shame to wake him, Arthur looked so much like the child that he really is. Or the time he sat on his mum's living room carpet with Arthur and his mum putting together jigsaw puzzles.

Douglas also had a favorite memory come to mind, driving in a transit van trying to fit one hundred otters into their jet and making a point of noticing yellow cars. Then there was a memory of unsticking Arthur from the outside of the plane after taking off his glove and trying to open the door. And then there was the one of Arthur throwing a bowl of chocolate sludge at his aunt in Helsinki, and singing to Carolyn while holding a smoking fish cake and looking at the Northern lights.

Arthur had all those memories go through his mind as well, as well as many others, but one kept running round in his mind.

"Christmas," he said, "the flight deck Christmas we had in Hawaii. That was brilliant," he said, smiling for the first time today. "Actually all of my favorite memories are of the trips. Even the trip to Ottery St. Mary."

Douglas said nothing in return to Arthur, but he nodded and gave Arthur a half-smile, the steward seeing the meaningful look shining from the First Officer's eyes. He thought about telling Arthur and Martin that his favorite memories, at least a good portion of them, were also from trips he had been on whilst with MJN. And although Martin hadn't been asked the question, he too was coming to the realization that Arthur's confession was also true for him.

"You know, I was watching a programme the other night that said that the family of this century is really made up of friends and not necessarily made of relations. And that's how I think of you two," Arthur stated before exiting the cockpit.

"It seems we find Arthur in a sentimental mood this evening," Douglas smirked after the steward left, even though the very same could be said of him as well. He wondered if he had caught it from Arthur or if it had been the other way round.

"Douglas, do you think we can do this?" Martin asked, pointing to a gap in the wall of thunderstorms blocking the entirety of Atlantic Ocean on the radar print out that Buenos Aires had given them. Douglas motioned for Martin to give him the paper, and studied it for a moment.

Martin gave Douglas the page gladly, not wanting to think of how true Arthur's regurgitated statement from whatever telly programme he had been watching. The amount of times that Douglas had saved him from whatever mess they had gotten themselves into, or doing the little things to make Arthur feel better - they were kind of like brothers, going on trips with their mum, playing silly games and quibbling along the way. And to be honest, Martin felt closer to the crew than he did about his actual siblings. He had never sung joyously, tossing apples from hand to hand, getting accidentally drunk; not to mention the time that Carolyn and Douglas had talked him up to Simon after his mum had that scare. Nothing remotely close.

MJN had become his family. A dysfunctional family, that much was true, but no more than his own family. In some respects better than his family. When Martin thought about (which he had been doing nearly obsessively over the past two weeks) some of the things that Douglas and Carolyn, and to a slightly sillier degree, Arthur, have done in order to help him baffled him. In the past few years he had been with MJN, he had gotten so much better, and not just at flying. He was beginning to worry though. He had never kept a secret from Douglas and Carolyn for this long. And especially not something this big; they would be suspecting, if they didn’t already.

"I think that's our only shot, unless we want to go half way through Africa, but we don't have the fuel for that.”

"No, no we don't," Martin affirmed, knowing that trying to fly around the thunderstorm was not an option. Trying to find a break in it was their only option. They had already discussed this earlier when they had filed their flight plan, but there was something about it that was still bothering Martin.

The next time that Arthur comes into the flight deck with fresh coffee and their late night dinner, Douglas begins to realize just how quiet it's been in GERTI.

"Arthur, where's Carolyn?" Douglas asked.

"Trying to sleep," Arthur answered. "I don't think she slept much after we got into Argentina early yesterday morning." They had landed in Argentina at 4 am earlier this morning, and everyone knew that Carolyn couldn't sleep during the day, at least not much. She had gotten about three hours worth of a nap at the hotel before she heard the maids cleaning the other rooms around hers. And once Carolyn was awake, she stayed awake.

Arthur sat quietly in the jump seat once the pilots had taken their meals and began to eat them quietly. He didn't explain it and the pilot's didn't ask, but he just felt better being in their company than being alone in the cabin. Sure, Mum was back there, but he knew that any little sound he made could wake her. So up here was definitely the better place for him.

“Skip, if you couldn’t be a pilot, what would you do?” their steward asked.

“What do you mean, if I couldn’t be a pilot?”

“Not to say that your life would ever take such a terrible turn, but if, for whatever reason, you couldn’t fly…” Douglas tried to help.

"I think, if I weren't flying, I would be in the ATC tower," Martin replied. Douglas hadn't expected him to answer; he expected him to waffle with the question. He knew all too well that Martin's one ambition in life was to fly. But it seemed, somewhere along the way - that the thought had crossed Martin's mind that if he couldn't fly, he could at least help others to do so.

“What about you Douglas?” Martin asked.

“Oh, I dunno,” he brushed off the question with his trademark bored laconic tone.

Douglas looked back to Arthur, who had his eyes closed and was humming something very softly to himself. Martin too had closed his eyes, his meal weighing heavy in his stomach and making him yearn for a nap. The lack of sleep from the twelve hours previous was suddenly catching up with him. Martin, feeling Douglas's gaze, opened his eyes and Douglas shook his head softly, Martin gave a soft nod and closed his eyes again. He didn't mean to fall all the way asleep. Martin had meant to have a bit of a catnap but the soft tune that the steward hummed lulled him into sleep. A few hours passed without incident, Douglas checked in with the local ATC as he passed through their airspace. The Captain and the Steward slept gently near him - there was far less snoring than he expected. He was actually really tempted to get up and move Arthur as he looked uncomfortable in the jump seat, practically hanging out of the seat fastening.

Meanwhile, Douglas let the autopilot do most the work while he could before they hit the bad weather and let (well, not so much let, as couldn't help from the contrary) Arthur's phrase from early toss round his mind. They were like family. The trip to Devon, St. Petersburg with Arthur and his dad, flying across all of Russia, sitting in the fantastically empty airport drinking pineapple juice in Kilkenny, even going Martin's mum's house to help him shine in his family's eyes. The things he did for these people, his co-workers, his friends. They were his family, absolutely.

Douglas signed off with the ATC in Brazil, getting the feeling that it was the point of no return. He told himself it was an irrational feeling. He got another couple hours away from South America before he reached the edge of the storm.

"Christ," Douglas cursed under his breath right before hitting the first pocket of turbulence. The jet bounced in the sky, jolting both Martin and Arthur awake, both waking with a yelp.

"We've officially reached the storm," he informed Martin as a crack of lightning jumped from cloud to cloud a few miles in front of them yet. Arthur kept the high-pitched whine of fear in his throat but it was still certainly audible.

"What happened to the gap?" Martin asked, waking up quickly, studying the sky in front of them, and seeing an unyielding wall of clouds.

"While I am no meteorologist, my best educated guess would be that the storm was moving more quickly than originally anticipated and the gap has closed."

"I'm going to go check on Mum," Arthur said, unstrapping himself from the jump seat.

"Arthur," Martin called back just before he left the flight deck, "coffee, please."

"Right-0, Skip."

It wasn't quite half an hour later before Arthur returned once more with two fresh cups of coffee.

"How was Carolyn?" They had gone through some more turbulence but nothing as bad as that first jolt.

"She's still asleep. I don’t think she woke up," Arthur replied.

"Really? I didn't realize she was that heavy of a sleeper."

"She's not. But she hasn't slept since Wednesday night. I mean I think she got a bit of nap earlier this morning, I mean yesterday morning, but not much."

 

\------------

They hit another bad pocket of turbulence once more and Arthur gripped the arms of the seat and tried hard not to make another whimpering sound but failed.

"Martin, are you okay for a few minutes?" Douglas asked, and Martin nodded, his concentration on the sky before them. He unbuckled and turned in his seat, facing Arthur. He was about to say something when he saw the flash of light that lit up the flight deck. Time began to slow down and Douglas knew what happened before the results of it began. The lights in the flight deck flickered out as the plane began dropping straight out of the sky. GERTI had been struck by lightning.

"Arthur, get back to the cabin, and strap in tight," Douglas said taking the three steps he needed to gather his steward by the collar of his shirt, open the door and throw him towards the cabin. He got back in his seat and strapped in again and began going through checks with Martin.

"How far did we fall?" he asked, looking at the multitude of flashing warning lights.

"Eight hundred feet. Number two compressor is stalled, number one engine's fine."

"Right, number two compressor stalled." Douglas started reciting the checklist for stalled engine compressor but didn't get very far before the next thing hit them.

They crashed into another pocket of turbulence and bounced the plane down another five hundred feet while trying to get the engine restarted. Then another flash of blinding light lit up the flight deck, a scream from the cabin, and the sensation of falling once more. This time, though, the master fire warning bell was going off and not just because the electrical sensors in were being hit by lightning again. No, this time, the lightning had begun a flameout to the number one engine.

They were going down and quickly.

"Attention cabin crew, please prepare for emergency water landing," Douglas called into the intercom.

"Mayday, mayday, Golf-Echo-Romeo-Tango-India. Engineering failure, I repeat engineering failure of both engines, we have one engine on fire and one in stall - we are crash landing into the ocean."

Following Martin's call of mayday, there were five full seconds of silence before Martin panicked.

"Where's ATC?"

"We're in the middle of the ocean in the middle of the night. The Primary Guard might not be necessarily in range. Martin, do you want me to land it?"

"No, I'll do it."

"Okay." Douglas pretended he didn't see the single tear escape from Martin's eye, and busied himself trying to get the number one engine’s fire out and the plane to glide gently into the ocean. But the thunderstorm and its turbulence had different ideas about a nice false landing. Even if Douglas had taken the landing off him, there was nothing more he could have done.

"Too fast, too fast," Martin said, trying to pull up the plane, the proximity alarms and probably half a dozen other warnings beeped loudly but it was too late. The nose of GERTI dove into the ocean, and Douglas grabbed Martin's shoulder, shielding them both from the impact. The plane started filling with water as it began to sink; both the pilots lost consciousness for a moment and woke up to find themselves up to their chests with water. Martin unstrapping himself from his seat, looking back over to Douglas. He too was scrambling to get his belt off before the water completely overtook him.

"Get the door, Martin. I'll get Carolyn and Arthur," he said before taking one last gulp of air and swimming back toward the cabin. Douglas found Arthur gasping for air at the top of the aisle, his inflatable life preserver already on. He grabbed onto Arthur's arm as he came up for air next to him.

"Where's Carolyn?"

"I think she hit her head, Douglas," he said, the panic in his voice worrying, pointing to the seats behind them.

"I'll get her, go help Martin with the door. Deep breath." He pushed Arthur towards where Martin should be. Douglas gasped for air once more and dove down, immediately seeing why Arthur had sounded the way he did. The first sign of Carolyn he saw was her feet, dangling a few feet from where the ground actually was, the upper part of her getting lost in a mess of wires and the lines from the oxygen masks. Douglas tried his best to pull the unconscious woman from underneath the overhead bins, but she wouldn't budge. He swam closer to her, trying to untangle her a bit when he saw the stream of blood from her head mixing in with the water. He feared that it was a lost cause, but he wasn't going to leave her.

Meanwhile, Arthur had found Martin, trying to pull the girt bar to release the door, but the pressure against the side of the plane wasn't making it easy. When Martin saw Arthur, he did a few quick gestures which Arthur took as finally getting to guess at charades. From what Arthur got, he needed to help Skip budge the lever on the door and then catch the lift raft when the door opened. He nodded to him, showing he understood and tugged on Skip's jacket, suggesting he take it off. Martin nodded, sliding off his Captain's jacket and pulling his tie over his head.

Arthur had prepared himself, ready to push against the lever. Martin joined him again; their joined efforts prying open the door. Arthur managed to do exactly as he was told. When the door burst open, he caught the raft that automatically deployed from the emergency lever being pulled and managed to hold on while it went shooting up the twelve or so feet to the surface. He even successfully got in the raft and then waited for the rest of the crew. He would wait a long time.

For, although Martin too got pulled out of GERTI when the door opened, he was not so lucky to be able to grab the raft. Instead he spun through the water, the change of the pressure spinning him further down. His inner ear problem got the better of him; he couldn't tell which way was up in the dark water. Martin didn't have any breath left. He floated down farther, his lungs screaming for oxygen and his head going fuzzy. He thought a moment about Douglas and Carolyn, he hadn't seen them get out of the plane, but they must have - right? They were up with Arthur - weren't they? Douglas would have taken care of everything, it would be fine.

A funny thought struck him right before he lost consciousness, something along the lines of how he really was a Captain because he was going down with his ship.

But everything, as Captain Crieff would never learn in this life, was not fine. Douglas had struggled too long against the lines that held the unconscious body of Carolyn Knapp-Shappey to the underneath of the overhead compartments. He too was out of breath, and there were no more air pockets he could use to prolong his attempt to give Arthur back his mother. He made his way toward the open port, and saw Martin floating a few feet away, next to the nose of GERTI. The vacant look in his eyes signaled to Douglas that he was too late for Martin too, but he swam out to him anyway, grabbing his arms and trying to shake him awake before he too conceded to the darkness edging his vision, wondering if it really was a pair of otters coming toward him.  
\--------------------------------------

Above the water, Arthur Shappey had yelled for his mum and the pilots for hours before he began to sing to himself about men going to mow a meadow, magical men and their flying machine and being too busy doing nothing until he fell asleep in the bottom of the inflatable raft.

He awoke to a touch, a soft touch, pushing hair along his forehead. Arthur was sure that a "Time to get up, dear heart," in his mother's voice would follow, but it not his mum's voice that came next.

"Arthur," the voice coaxed sweetly, but definitely not his mum. Arthur sat up, feeling the rubber raft beneath him and the events of last night slowly coming back to him. There was a very pretty lady sitting next to him, smiling at him. It was early morning; the sun was rising, making the sky look red.

"Oh, hello," he said cheerily to the mysterious lady in his raft. "Who are you?" Arthur looked around his boat, unable to see a ship where she might have come from. She was wearing a white button down shirt, a black vest, a black pair of trousers and a pair of shades like Skip had in Spain on top of her head.

"My name is Mary. It's nice to meet you Arthur," she replied. "You've been very brave, you know."

"I try to be," he replied, still very confused about where this woman had come from. "I'm sorry, but how did you get here?"

"Oh, I've been here all night with you, and Douglas, and Martin and your mum, Carolyn," she replied, shifting her shoulders a little bit, and large white wings coming from around her back. At the same instant, two otters stopped swimming in the ocean next to the raft and came and snuggled up to the lady with the wings.

"Wow!" Arthur exclaimed at the sight. "Are you Ottery St. Mary?"

"I am," she said with a smile, letting one of the otters nuzzle against her hand.

"So Douglas was right!" She smiled, not going to admit that she had gone to some lengths to find two very snuggly otters solely for his sake.

"I have something for you Arthur, if you want to take them. But before I give them to you, I need you to realize what's at stake. If you decide to take what I offer you, you come with me and I'll take you to where your mum, Skip and Douglas are. If you decide not to, you'll wait here for rescue crews to find you - but I'll let you into a secret -" she said leaning close to Arthur.

"The mayday that Douglas called out wasn't heard by anyone. The next check in with ATC in Morocco realized that you didn't check in last night, but they haven't even come close to finding you yet, Arthur. They've just sent boats out from Africa and from Brazil, and they won't be here for a very long time."

"So what is that you were going to give me, Ottery St. Mary?" Arthur asked.

"Mary is fine. I'm going to give you these, if you want them." She held out her open palm, a pin sitting in her hand. It was the pair of wings pin that you used to get when you were a kid and flew on a plane. Arthur had never gotten a pair when he was a kid, not with a pilot as a father.

"So, do you want to come with me or do you want to wait to see me again?" she asked, resting her elbows on her knees, her hand still open to him if he wanted to take it at any time. For as much of a clot as Arthur was sometimes, he absolutely understood what Mary, Ottery St. Mary, was asking him. Mum and Douglas and Skip hadn't made it. They weren't floating on seat cushion somewhere away from him, taken in a different direction in the choppy waters. They were down with GERTI. Well, no, Ottery St Mary said that she could take him to them - to what he assumed was an otter-filled heaven.

Did he want to stay here and see if someone rescued him? And if someone did, what would he do? He'd tell them what happened to GERTI and everyone - but then what? Go live with his dad? Or live in Mum's house, if he even could? He knew that she had a bunch of mortgages on the house, but he wasn't positive if that meant that everything would balance out in order for him to live there. Or he could go live in a flat, and work at the Duty Free like Douglas had said. And the idea of being in an airport all the time but never flying anywhere suddenly seemed like an awful idea.

"You said you had been here all night? Did you give Skip and Douglas and Mum wings as well?" Arthur asked, because he was wanted to know.

"I did."

"So are you like, the angel of death?"

"No, no. I'm more like your guardian angel. Mary, the patron saint of MJN and otters." Arthur smiled again. He tried to think of everyone else, like Mrs. Skip, George, and Karl, and everyone at the airfield and his dad (what really had him worried was who would play Boggle with Martin's mum); but it seemed as though his body made up his mind for him, his hand closing over the pin in her open hand.

"You're sure?" she asked, looking for the truth in his eyes and seeing it immediately.

"Okay," she replied, taking his hands in hers, getting back the pin and fastening it to his shirt. The next moment Arthur felt the most amazing thing, as his own wings unfurled from his back and bumped into hers.

"Come along then, Arthur," she said letting one of the otters climb and sit along her shoulders. She flapped her wings once, hard, and her feet left the boat.

"Be a dear and grab Philip," she said, flapping, trying to hover in place. Arthur gathered up the otter in his arms and then tried to flap like she had. He managed to take off, and keep hold of Philip the otter; smiling at the thought of how excited Skip must have been to finally get his own set of wings.


End file.
